Complaint to Ofcom Regarding “The Great Global Warming Swindle”

This is especially the case for climate change, because reduction in emissions will only reduce climate change significantly in 30 years plus, usually considered to be 50-100 years. Given that there is credible evidence that climate change is occurring and that it is largely caused by mankind’s emissions, the precautionary principle says that we should act now, because of the large risks involved. See the Stern Review, Executive Summary, p1, “The benefits of strong, early action on climate change outweigh the costs” (http://tinyurl.com/vgzxv).

The program is also incorrect here in that much of the debate on mitigation is about how to square fossil fuel use with climate change. Hence the emphasis on carbon capture and storage technologies because of the acknowledged impossibility of asking China, India et al to stop using coal. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are not fundamentally opposed to carbon capture technology for this reason, although both stress the importance of implementing serious measures immediately in order to reduce emissions, rather than waiting for future technologies to come online (see http://tinyurl.com/ywtxwl [Greenpeace] and http://tinyurl.com/37g53x, PDF [Friends of the Earth]).

In addition, to dismiss the concept of the precautionary principle is, in effect, to dismiss the entire concept of taking out insurance. All sensible governments, businesses and individuals take out insurance against small but potentially very serious risks, such as fires. Home and car owners have to take out insurance by law. For the film to imply otherwise is a serous misrepresentation of the facts.

Finally, as discussed in Comment 40, page 33, the idea that anyone is suggesting that we should not use technology is a fallacy, and is apparently intentionally misleading.]

(In breach of the 2003 Communications Act Section 265, Ofcom 5.4, 5.5, 5.7, 5.11, 5.12)

[Cut to scene in small mud hut somewhere in Kenya]

[Comment 126: The “four million children” figure appears to have been made up by the film-maker – the World Health Organisation fact sheet gives a total figure of 1.6 million people per year: http://tinyurl.com/258364.

Continued …